Archive for December, 2012

12.30.2012

Believe it or not, I was a social media dabbler before I started this blog three years ago.

I even live tweeted my mammogram.

The difference? I had about 30 followers at the time. There were no replies, no retweets to my story.

I was tweeting into the void.

Once I started my blog, I took my social media dabbling to a whole other level. I was just a gal with stage 3 cancer, a 10% chance of living 5 years, and nothing much to lose. So I opened a second twitter account under the name “@chemo_babe” to keep my identity hidden.

I got some traction in the twitter world on the eve of my second or third chemo. I was besides myself with anxiety, having suffered terrible side effects from the first dose alone. I found the hashtag #blamecancer, started by Drew Olanoff. Drew was moved by my tweets, started retweeting me, rallying others to support me. It was a phenomenal experience in the midst of a lot of suffering, this sudden embrace by total strangers who showed compassion for my plight.

To be sure, my blog has been a lifeline. Paradoxically, the anonymity I started out with helped it to be so. Hiding behind this persona, I could be as brutally honest as I needed to be. I spoke truths that resonated with others and helped me connect with other patients, caregivers, and doctors. It has been an education that I truly value.

Over time, I found the amazing #bcsm community. With the coaxing of supportive friends, I gradually “came out,” using my first name and eventually my second. I started getting media attention, locally, nationally, and even internationally. Soon everyone who could google knew that ChemoBabe was Lani Horn, just as anybody reading Marvel Comics knew that Superman was Clark Kent or Spider Man was Peter Parker.

When I finished my last procedure this past May, my old twitter pal Drew sent his congratulations and tweeted, “Are you going to change your twitter handle now?”

Then answer at that time was no. I have built a community through this identity. I have thousands of twitter followers and Facebook fans, tens of thousands of blog hits. Cancer was still a central part of my everyday life, as I battled fatigue and other side effects, working to pick up the pieces of my life.

That was May. Now it’s December, and I woke up last week feeling like the answer to Drew’s question had changed. Yes, I tweet a lot about cancer. But I also connect with knitters, parents, and writers. I livetweet awesome, tragic, and inane cultural events along with my twitter pals. “Chemobabe” seemed too narrow and burdened by the past to be my twitter identity.

So I went back to my old, hardly used twitter account and hijacked that name. I am now @Lanisia, a nickname my uncle still uses for me. It’s a name I made up when I was 3 and I announced to my stepfather that I was actually a lost princess.

“What’s your name, Princess?” he played along

“I am Princess Lanisia,” I said with as much royalty as I could muster.

My old pretend name thus supplants my newer pretend name. Lanisia takes over for ChemoBabe from here on out. All of this superheros, princesses, and make-believe seems fitting for the ephemeral, electronic world of blogs, tweets, and status updates, where bonds are made, experiences shared, and heartfelt truths are told.